The brigantine Le Griffon, commissioned by French explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is towed from Cayuga Creek, where it had been constructed by La Salle and officer Henri de Tonti over the winter of 1678-79, to the southern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes.

In his quest to find the Northwest Passage to China and Japan to extend France’s fur trade, La Salle and Father Louis Hennepin set out on the Le Griffon's maiden voyage on August 7, 1679 with a crew of thirty-two, sailing across Lake Erie, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan through uncharted waters that only canoes had previously explored.

At Fort Conti, which they had built at the mouth of the Niagara River and Lake Ontario a few months earlier, they shift supplies and materials brought from Fort Frontenac into smaller boats, canoes or bateaux.

They want to be able to travel up the lower part of the shallow Niagara River, to what is now the location of Lewiston, New York.

The Iroquois have a well-established portage route in the area which they use to avoid the rapids and the cataract later known as Niagara Falls.